


Of Monsters And Humans

by Exiti_Anima



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: And Jaskier, BAMF Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, BAMF Jaskier | Dandelion, Feral Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Feral Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt Thinks About Humanity, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia Loves Jaskier | Dandelion, Introspection, Jaskier | Dandelion Loves Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, M/M, POV Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Protective Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Protective Jaskier | Dandelion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-20
Updated: 2020-06-20
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:40:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24820063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Exiti_Anima/pseuds/Exiti_Anima
Summary: Geralt wasn't human.Not the way that they think of when they hear the word, vulnerable and soft. Their time that edges on until their inevitable demise, time that makes humans beautiful.Geralt thought that sweet serenade about time and humans was bullshit, and knew what time really made humansIt made them bitter and desperate, knowing death drew near with each fall and rise of the sun, and the only thing stopping them from wrecking havoc on the world from their own bitterness and ugly feelings was their strength being stolen from them with each frail breath.There were some outliers to this bitter truth, ones that brought about the sweet serenade of lies in the first place, but Geralt knew of the overall truth when it came to humans.No, Geralt wasn’t human.Or,Geralt contemplates the mannerisms and actions of humans and how Jaskier doesn't follow them, and how that makes them compatible.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 16
Kudos: 187
Collections: Interesting Character and/or Interesting Relationship Development





	Of Monsters And Humans

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! This is a new type of writing style for those who have seen my other works but I'm very pleased with the end result, so enjoy!

People often forget that Geralt isn’t human

Not the way that they think of when they hear the word, vulnerable and soft. Their time that edges on until their inevitable demise, time that makes humans beautiful.

Geralt thought that sweet serenade about time and humans was bullshit, and knew what time really made humans.

It made them bitter and desperate, knowing death drew near with each fall and rise of the sun, and the only thing stopping them from wrecking havoc on the world from their own bitterness and ugly feelings was their strength being stolen from them with each frail breath.

There were some outliers to this bitter truth, ones that brought about the sweet serenade of lies in the first place, but Geralt knew of the overall truth when it came to humans.

No, Geralt wasn’t human.

Humans also had morals, some strong and some blurry, but morals all the same. Jaskier loved to sing songs of Geralt, of his knight like morals—ones that were a solid black and white. Monsters get killed, those that weren’t monsters don’t.

Jaskier was a liar.

A charming one, but a liar all the same. Quite like the sweet serenade, Geralt would think.

But Jaskier was also the bitter truth, because he didn’t lie—not to Geralt at least.

And for the non-human, that’s all that mattered.

Respect doesn’t make history, Jaskier had once said, and that’s why he was the bitter truth and the sweet lie all in one.

Geralt had no morals, no solid ones at least. Monsters get killed, but it was up to interpretation as to what _monsters_ meant.

To humans it meant anything non-human, which is why Geralt was a monster.

To witchers it meant a bit more, for the truly old and desperate ones it meant anything that would get them coin.

For Geralt it meant that the word was situational.

Geralt was a monster in some moments, but his morals didn’t allow him to feel guilty about it. He became a monster to kill other monsters, there’s no reason to feel guilty.

_~~(Renfri was the only monster that he felt guilty about)~~_

But not always, there was moments where he let his hand pass through the rays of humanity. Where he gave half smirks to Jaskier as they drank ale, when he slowed himself to relax in the bath as Jaskier cleaned him with soft fingers that didn’t know the meaning of the word monster.

Jaskier had morals.

But Jaskier was an unique human, one who wasn’t ashamed to admit he bent his own morals for selfish reasons.

So when Geralt caught him once walking out a back alley, with blood on his fingers and a sated look in his eyes that Geralt could only imagine his own eyes looking like when he finished killing a monster, he said nothing but lead him to their shared room.

And when a mother cried about her son who was found dead in the very same back alley, Geralt and Jaskier were already long gone.

Jaskier bent his morals for selfish reasons, and those reasons being Geralt.

So when the boy, just turned man, approached Jaskier and offered to _save_ him from the monster with white hair, the _helpless_ bard agreed with a pitiful look on his face and a dangerous feeling in his heart.

Humans knew the feeling as possessiveness, wolves knew the feeling as a claim on their mate.

Geralt fought ugly and brutal, all witcher’s did really.

That fact is what added the term monster in witcher’s reputations, but Geralt had received additional trials from the others and that made him worse.

When he fought monsters that weren’t of human nature, he did so with a grime expression or a snarl.

When he fought humans, he allows a moment of reprise at the end to _smile._

The smile was ugly and brutal, just like his fighting style, because Geralt didn’t have morals and he didn’t feel guilty about delivering the bitter truth of death and time to the monsters that were born human.

Because monsters were all the same, no matter the skin they wore or the species Destiny birthed them as.

When Jaskier had first seen the smile, he did nothing but hum and comment about how Geralt _could’ve been cleaner, I mean really how do you expect me to get this blood out-_

And Geralt was reminded that Jaskier was human, but humans could be monsters too at a young age without the help of time.

Jaskier smiles too, Geralt knows. Geralt knows all the different smiles Jaskier wears, because he knows that underneath it all is something that isn’t quite human but not quite monster either.

And if Geralt was a poet, he’d say it was beautiful. How Geralt was the physical embodiment of not-human but not-monster either, but Jaskier held the soul of that.

But Geralt wasn’t a poet, so instead he calls it messy.

It’s messy because they’re two halves that make a whole, they make each other monsters and humans at the same time, and the lines blur like Jaskier’s morals and when Geralt calls attention to it Jaskier calls it beautiful—not because he’s a poet, but because they don’t know which one is the monster and which one is the human.

Foolish humans call Jaskier his humanity, and they’re false. Geralt has passed his hands through the stream of humanity long before Jaskier. Jaskier makes it easier to hold, making the streams of light solid in a way they’ve never been before, but he’s not Geralt’s humanity—just like Geralt isn’t Jaskier’s monster.

 _Foolish, but poetic._ Jaskier says.

 _Poetic, but foolish._ Geralt responds.

Jaskier smiles, because he’s a liar. Jaskier smiles because he’s happy. Jaskier smiles because he’s uncertain.

Jaskier smiles like Geralt does after he’s killed a monster.

And that’s when Geralt knows that he’s not the only monster hunter, it’s just a matter of what species of monsters the two of them hunt.

Humans don’t know the meaning of family.

They claim they do, they grow defensive when told otherwise, but they don’t know the meaning.

How could they, not even Destiny herself knows it.

Nobody can know what family means, because it holds many different meanings—too many meanings.

Jaskier doesn’t get offended when Geralt cuts him off when he mentions the word family to tell him he doesn’t know what it means.

Geralt doesn’t know why he says that, maybe because he’s trying to drive off the bard. Maybe because he wants to see how he’ll respond.

_"I never claimed to. I don’t say it with any meaning behind it, I just meant they birthed me and most consider that family."_

_"You aren't most."_

_"Neither are you."_

Jaskier gave him a small, but knowing, smile and Geralt lets him continue his story.

Geralt doesn’t know what family is either, and he doesn’t think he’ll find out during his lifetime.

Humans don’t like their mortality pointed out to them.

Geralt learns this one early on, when he watches humans blow themselves up trying to find an elixir to immortality.

Geralt laughed in their face and rode on to find a proper job.

When he mentions Jaskier’s mortality, the man laughs in his face like Geralt had with the supposed _‘alchemists.’_

Geralt had assumed Jaskier would give him the sweet serenade of lies, he was a bard after all, but he soon learned that Jaskier would never lie to him, for he didn’t have to be a bard around him.

_"Death is inevitable, it comes for everyone—including you my dear witcher. Slower, perhaps, but time beats in rhythm with death, and our hearts beat in rhythm with time."_

Jaskier was truth, but it wasn’t bitter. It was factual, an observation rather than resignation, and Geralt found it refreshing.

Humans were jealous and possessive beings.

Geralt knew in the way lords and ladies would glare at Jaskier, who would only merrily waved at them in return.

Jaskier was not bound to gender, which just made the pool of jealous lovers more expansive.

Geralt wasn’t either, but the difference was that he did not seduce those he took to bed with sweet but poisonous words of false love. He paid humans to be able to bed them, but that’s it.

Jaskier was dangerous with his words, a poison that worked its way slowly through your body until it was too late when you realized.

Jaskier was not like other humans, he didn’t feel anything but lust when he bedded women and men alike—despite his sweet words that said otherwise.

In that aspect, Jaskier was the serenade of lies.

Jaskier did not know of the word jealously, too free to be bound by anyone, but he did know possessiveness.

He knew it in the way blood coated his fingers when he dragged someone out into the back alley to show the world who the real monster was out of the two of them, even for a brief moment.

He knew it in the way he, and only he, wrote songs of Geralt, how he snapped and snarled when Valdo tried to make their duo a trio.

Geralt knew of both words.

The former was when he was young, a new witcher, with the naivety to believe in the word peace. When he killed monsters and lords would get the credit instead of him.

The trials taught him that being a witcher was a thankless task, but it was humans that beat the lesson into him.

The latter Geralt knew from when he, instead of Jaskier, dragged a drunken boy who thought he was a man out into the back alley after he had attempted to bash Jaskier’s lute. The bard looked like he would gut the man himself, but once Geralt threw him over his shoulder and walked towards the door Jaskier had smoothed his expression and played a jovial song.

He played loud enough that nobody heard the yell of pain when Geralt let the rays of humanity slip through his fingers just enough to feel nothing when he became a monster to kill the human.

They were gone the next morning, and nobody knew of the two monsters that had visited the night before that laid claim only to each other in a bloody fashion.

They didn’t talk about it, the possessiveness that would curl in their stomach like molten lava and unspoken claim they had on one another, and Geralt had no qualms with that.

It was just another blurred line among the many that came with being around each other.

Geralt didn’t know how far he could slink in the darkness, away from the light of humanity, until he saw Jaskier forced into Time’s grasp.

Until he saw the bright blue eyes grow hazy with pain and pale skin become stained with red.

Until all he could hear was Jaskier’s heart beat in time with death.

_Time beats in rhythm with death, and our hearts beat in rhythm with time._

Geralt didn’t know he didn’t need the toxicity of potions to make him lose control, to make his senses heighten and mind become blank aside from the thought to _kill._

That the only thing they would keep him anchored would be the echo of death in the sound of Jaskier’s heartbeat.

When he slaughtered the lambs, because that’s what the foolish humans who dared attacked a monster’s mate were, he didn’t allow himself enough time to smile. Instead, he rushed to Jaskier’s side and faced the bitter truth of humans and time.

Except, Jaskier was a serenade of sweet lies and his poison had already set into Geralt’s body that made Geralt’s eyes leak water.

_"My monster, my humanity. My witcher."_

And Jaskier bested the rhythm of time with the spitefulness that humans were made of. He crowed of a scar that would match one of Geralt’s, and the Geralt threatened to set him back in time’s rhythm himself.

They talked after that, because Geralt was not a fool and knew that death could not be bested again, and Jaskier put his experience with countless lovers to use.

_"No others."_

_"Only you.”_

Geralt was not human. Geralt was not a monster either. He was an amalgamation of both, one that smiled when blood was staining his sword and laughed when he was amused. He had no morals and barely had a grasp on humanity, but felt human emotions.

But the world didn’t need to know that, only Jaskier got to see the mess he was.

Jaskier was a liar. Jaskier was brutally honest. Jaskier was the middle of bitter truth and sweet lies, Jaskier was the poison and the antidote. Jaskier was a human, but could very well act like a monster without losing sight of the golden rays in him completely.

The world didn’t need to know that either, only Geralt got to see the paradox he was.

What the world did get to know was that Jaskier was a helpless bard that told tales of a morally sound Geralt of Rivia, the White Wolf.

And if the White Wolf’s fur was matted with blood and his mate was buttercups that poisoned others, then nobody but the dead got to know that.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you liked it! Comments and kudos are always appreciated!
> 
> Toss a coin to your author, and buy me a coffee on [Kofi](https://ko-fi.com/exiti_anima)


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